Tanzania: A Journey Within (FILM REVIEW)
Tanzania:
A Journey Within
Film Review
by Kam Williams
African and American Travel to Tanzania
in Transformational Documentary
After finishing high school, Venance
Ndibalema made the most of an opportunity to leave Tanzania
to study physics and philosophy at the University of Miami.
Now, he’s ready to visit his homeland for the first time in years, a trip
likely to prove traumatic, given the changes both he and the country have
undergone during the interim.
Accompanying him on the eventful return
to Dar es Salaam is Kristen Kenney, a fellow Miami alumnus who’s never been to Africa.
A child of privilege, she must brace herself for the culture shock involved in
adjusting to modest accommodations sans most of the modern conveniences she’s
always taken for granted.
The subsequent sojourn is the
subject of Tanzania:
A Journey Within, a documentary
chronicling Venance and Kristen’s emotional and physical challenges long the
way. Directed by Sylvia Caminer, the picture is worth watching for the spectacular
visuals and anthropological insights alone, given the off-road trekker’s point-of-view
it affords the audience of everything from Mount
Kilimanjaro to the Serengeti Plains.
However, proving just as compelling is
the badinage between Venance and Kristen, as well as their chats with everyone
they encounter. He enjoys a reunion with his BFF William, and searches for a
sibling he hasn’t seen in over a decade. Meanwhile, Kristen experiences a sense
of exhilaration at exploring new places and at being so close to nature, at
least until she becomes deathly-ill during a bout with Malaria.
Nevertheless, she has to admit that
she’d grown up in the lap of luxury, so spoiled, in fact that she never even
had to cook her own food. By contrast, Venance reflects upon the harshness of
formative years spent fatherless in abject poverty exacerbated by his HIV+ mother’s
being shunned by her neighbors until the day she finally lost her battle with AIDS.
Lessons? “We learn through
hardship,” Ven rhapsodizes, adding, “If there were no fathers on the planet, I
would never have known I needed a father to be a man.” As for Kristen, she
finds it hard to leave Africa, “because you
get so close to the people so fast.” She also comes away appreciating that
“they don’t care about status. They just care about you.”
“I was soulless before this trip,”
the grateful debutante concedes. “This is the real world I was searching for.” Africa from the perspectives of a “Native Son” returning
to his roots and of a blue-eyed sister transformed by an unexpected catalyst
for spiritual growth.
Excellent
(4 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 103 minutes
Distributor: Heretic Films
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